DAY XX: Lantau Island, Stanley Coast (Southern HK Island) - Thursday, February 24
1100: wake, Starbuck’s for breakfast in HK. 39HKD for a chicken salad sandwich + coffee of the day
1130: bus over towards the East to JUSCO (mall), walk around till 1315 n meet up w/ UT
- take a long MTR ride to Tung Chung, then hop on a bus to go to Lantau Island to check out the big Buddha statue
- normally this statue’s big enough that you can see it from over a mile away, but today it was so foggy that I could barely see it even when I was standing right at the foot of the monument. it’s on top of a long stairway, on the peak of a little hill, n only when the wind blew the fog away was I able to see it. It’s pretty friggin’ huge though:
1735: afterwards, took the bus back to Tung Chung station, grabbed a snack @ this place that reminded me of the Bread Garden
1900: get back to the Causeway Bay area, hop on a public minibus (#40) n head to “Stanley Market” (Chek Chue) on the southern side of HK Island.
- it’s a quieter area, some expensive housing, lots of foreign investment & large HK companies pay good coin to house employees over on this side of the island
- usually some good shopping here too supposedly, but stuff’s closed by the time we get there
2030: dinner @ “Chilli & Spice” Thai restaurant
- place reminds me a bit of White Rock, pretty touristy, has a strip right along the beach, quite a few foreigners
2200: back @ UT’s in Sau Kei Wan, drink some soup that Aunt Winnie made for me, check email, etc…
2245: head home on 2A bus.
End of Day XX
(Full Album)
DAY XXI: Veggie Dinner in Choi Hung & Bloody Expensive Sashimi - Friday, February 25
Morning: had to call mom’s friend Aunt Barbara about setting something up for this Saturday, they want me to volunteer @ some awards ceremony or something??
- tells me she’s gonna get her younger daughter’s friend Tiffany to meet up w/ me tomorrow @ the MTR station n bring me to the ceremony, where they’ll give me instructions on what to do. O_o (sounds like a setup!!)
1225: on my own, managed to find my way to “runner street” (this place on the Kowloon side where the whole street is full of stores that sell all kinds of runners. funny thing is, I hear all the stores are owned by only 3 guys. ahh, they must be the “footwear tycoons”)
1300: so dazed from seeing so many shoes…everything looks the same. These hongers are crazy! finally bought the shoes I was looking for, start looking for food.
1345: grab lunch in Langham Place mall @ “Café Coral” (this place is about as common as Tim Horton’s is in Ontario I guess) for 25HKD
1530: home for a nap.
- Tiffany calls to touch base n arrange a time to meet tomorrow morning @ the MTR. She just graduated from some University in the states (California?), but she still sounds pretty honger to me.
- Last minute: Aunt Yu Ming calls later on, wants to take me to see some relative tonight. This lady who basically acted as her, my dad’s older brother, n my dad’s guardian/mom for a large part of their childhood when the family had to separate; with the 3 older siblings moving to HK w/ this lady, n their parents staying behind in China to take care of the 5 younger children.
1845: MTR to Choi Hung stn to meet up w/ aunt, visit “Grandma #2”
- this lady’s one tough cookie; she’s in her 80’s, lives on her own, still very energetic, eats vegetarian.
- She made us vegetarian dinner…I was starving so bad…but politely ate everything set in front of me, and she said my earrings were “pretty” O_o
2015: after visiting, head back home on my own, make a pit stop @ McD’s (I needed meat!!)
2140: met up w/ Junky n Angel, they took me to some sushi place that’s sposed to be really good.
- I don’t normally eat sashimi much at all, but I made an exception since they said this place was really well known n that movie stars n other rich folk would go there. It didn’t look fancy at all; just a tiny shop in the side of a building, the size of a large kitchen, stools, plain tables, n just a transparent tarp covering the entrance!
- Pretty crazy though…we just sat down @ the bar, n the chef dude just starts talking to us n making us stuff, whatever he feels like. Junky says he goes here around 2x/week, so that’s why he’s familiar I guess, but yeh…scallops, sea urchin, salmon, tuna, eel, octopus, all the good stuff, plus some other stuff that I had no clue about…we ordered some cooked stuff too, but most of it was raw
- Now although it was good…I still wasn’t really full b/c like I said, raw isn’t really my thing, but I thought hey I’m on vacation so I’ll try it. Junky had told me before we went in that the place was “a little bit expensive”, so I thought alright, prbbly like $20-30CDN/person. That’s more than all-you-can-eat prices here, but I thought ok it’s worth it to try something new. The actual bill for the 3 of us? $1300 HKD!!! That’s over $200CDN?!?! Man…that was a cool experience, but I’m never going there again…lol
0000: meet up w/ Colin, took him up to Junky’s bar, had a few drinks, chilled.
0130: home, shower, crash.
End of Day XXI
(Full Album)
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